I Was Replaying Final Fantasy IX When
by VashandNaomiForever
Summary: A "the gamer enters the game" story. But it's a bit different from the rest, because this gamer is accompanied by her betrothed, who is not a fan of Final Fantasy games. He's sure to stir the pot, making it a humorous adventure of a couple trying to stand one another inside this game world.
1. Chapter 1

**I Was Replaying FFIX When...**

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy 9 belongs to Square Enix.

In my household, not everyone enjoys the classic final fantasy games I play, and when I say "everyone", I am actually meaning my fiancée. We have many things in common, he can appreciate video games to an extent, like Assassins Creed and generic war games that I'm not even going to try and remember the titles of. Yet when it comes to RPG's, he's very unimpressed, having a negative stance on how the fighting sequences are, and not really caring for story line. Because of this, I tend to play my favorite games on my own.

One evening, he came home to find me playing the game final fantasy 9, I love this game, and enjoy replaying it from time to time just to go back down memory lane. So there I was, waiting out the scenes of the play, until it was time for Zidane to enter the castle and sneak sleeping weed into the princess's tea.

"Can we put in Family Guy or something? It's been a long day and I just want to veg out." He asks, taking off his shoes and starting for the shelf with all our box sets of DVD's.

"Can you wait a minute? I want to save my progress." I ask, trying to pay attention to my game as I hear him sigh in light annoyance. Reluctantly, he sits in his recliner, as I continue on with my game play.

"It's suppose to thunder tonight." He comments, his words were quickly followed by a loud thunder above us, practically shaking the whole house.

Now I'm worried, if the power goes out, before I save, I'm going to be very angry and possibly take my frustration out on him. I don't want that to happen, and neither does he, so I'm trying to hurry up, but I've already played through to the part that they're all on the stage, pretending to act as if everything's normal, that "Rusty" is just apart of the performance.

As I'm playing, and my guy is grumbling, the thunder and wind is really picking up, shingles rattling on the roof. My man, his name is Shaun by the way, he goes to open the shades to the front windows, so we can see the lightning striking throughout the dark sky.

"Wow, pretty." He comments as I'm trying to hustle through dialog and the small fight with Steiner, the bomb behind him growing rapidly. All I want to do is get through everything fast enough to save, because I really didn't feel like going through all that again.

"You know, it's stupid." I hear his grumble, I pause the game to raise a brow.

"What's stupid?" I ask, already anticipating his negative response.

"Four people in your party, taking turns to hit the knight. It's stupid, why can't they just hit him all at once? Why do they even have to take turns? I just have no patience for this type of game." He shakes his head, unimpressed with a series that so many people love and adore.

"I'm not going to argue about this again. It's not like it's real life, and they're waiting to hit the bad guy one at a time, it's a game, so quit picking it apart already. I didn't pick apart Leisure Suit Larry when you had that for the PS2." I remind him, of course he just shrugs.

"That was still a better game than this one." I swear, it's like he's goading me.

"You know, for a guy that likes fantasy novels, and use to play Magic The Gathering, I'm always surprised by how shitty your attitude is against this game series." I'm now at the scene in the game where they're trying to take off and leave Alexandria.

Out the window, we see a huge lightning bolt touch down in a neighbors field, we both watch and wait to see if the strike will cause a fire. The storms getting worse, the lights are flickering a bit, yet the television and PS1 are still stable. I'm focused on the game again as my significant other keeps staring out the window. In the game, I'm about to walk towards a moogle, when darkness engulfs the entire house. We're both sitting there, silent in the blacked out house, lightening isn't even striking anymore to give us light.

I move my hand to try and fumble for my phone, it makes for a good flash light in a tricky situation, when I realize I'm not touching anything to my right. It's all thin air, no table, no glass with tea in it, and no phone. I feel this is rather odd, Shaun and I live alone together, he wasn't able to move that table away that quickly...

"Shaun?" I call out his name, because he's being pretty quiet.

No answer, so I stand up from my chair, and walk towards where he should have been. I'm walking, keeping my hands out to feel something first before running into it, and I'm not finding anything. In fact, our living room appears to have gotten bigger, because I'm still walking and not running into the wall. All this is starting to bother me, I start to wonder if maybe I fell asleep while playing the game, or maybe I fainted...but none of that is sitting well with me, it's not making much sense, those possibilities.

I stop walking and turn in the direction I knew the T.V. had been in. I'm waiting, wondering if maybe I'm going crazy, when I see a small light where the screen should have been. So I start moving, the light comforting me a little the closer I get. As I get closer, I notice the light gets bigger, kind of like when you're exiting a cave. My bare feet are starting to feel cold, the carpet isn't feeling soft anymore. I feel like I'm walking on smooth linoleum, or something like it in texture.

The light begins to get unbearably bright, so I close my eyes for a moment as I finish my last steps towards it, and stop.

The moment I open my eyes, I know that something horrible has happened to me. I've either died, or I'm in limbo, because what I'm seeing doesn't make sense at all. It's too vivid for a dream, this familiar yet strange landscape. I'm gazing out of the Ice Cavern, towards the little town of Dali.

"This is crazy!" I'm talking to myself, having no one currently at my side. I start to look over myself, relieved to see my beautiful opal rings still on my fingers. They were given to me by Shaun, and I feel naked and uneasy without them on me. As I'm looking over my skin, glad that this world hasn't changed me so far, I notice my clothes are different.

I'd been wearing comfy shorts with a purple tank top, but now I have on a white long sleeved blouse, with a simple brown leather vest over it. I'm in comfortable suede pants, with knee high leather boots. I don't appear to have any weapons on me, much to my dismay. I know how this game works, there are monsters out there ready to strike and kill travelers. As I'm coming to grips with all this, I hear a voice yelling my name.

I look down and in the grassy area before you reach the town, I see a guy waving at me. I do a double take, surprised at seeing a familiar, normal face within this game world. It's Shaun, and he's somehow traveled into this land with me. I start making my way from the cavern entrance, towards him. He has a very confused look on his goateed face, his outfit looks very strange on his farm boy frame. My guy, is wide shouldered and big boned, he's six foot one, and strong as an ox. He's currently in this tunic not unlike the Dali men wore, made of a simple cotton like material, with well worn brown trousers. Quite different from his usual Jeans and collared western shirt.

A part of me wants to laugh, but I hold it back, knowing that my actions weren't going to make him feel better. As I reach him, I take my hand and touch his face, making sure he's real and not an illusion.

"Amy, is this some sort of joke? Or are we really...you know...in a video game." He's frowning, apparently not impressed with being inside the game he had dissed.

"I'm wondering if we died, and this is like, limbo or something." I answered him, not completely certain as to why we were there.

"We're not dead." He assures me.

"How do you know?" I ask him, that's when the asshole pinched me, making me yell and slap at him.

"See? You felt that, dead people wouldn't feel a thing." He's rationalizing this situation, not wanting to be the negative one, I keep my mouth shut for a moment.

"So, what are we suppose to do?" He asked me, apparently I'm the leader as of now...

"We'll let's wait for Zidane and the gang at the Dali Inn." I start making my way towards the town, he rushes to put himself in front.

"Let me lead, in case...you know, those weird things you fight in this game? In case they pop up. I'll be your shield." He informs me, I'm kinda enjoying the way he wants to protect me from the beasts, it's a cute look on him compared to his old grumbly self over this game. Together we trudged through the plains, wondering what the Hell was going to happen next in this weird situation.

-0-0-

A/N: This is a fun story about what might happen if my Fiancée and I got inside the game world of FF9. He's not a fan, and there's going to be funny situations in here with how he reacts to characters and how they game is suppose to go. Story line in FF9 might just change a little with us trapped in their world.


	2. Chapter 2

**I Was Replaying Final Fantasy IX When...**

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy 9 belongs to Square Enix.

A/N: The following is Shaun's POV, we'll be switching back and forth between chapters on personal views on what takes place.

-0-0-

Why, out of every game we own, did we have to get stuck in this one? I would have been okay with Borderlands, blowing shit up and killing anything that moved. Or even a God damn racing game, I could have dealt with driving expensive high performance cars, but no. Here we are, stuck in this poorly drawn video game, with a shitty story line. I'm thirty years old, wearing a fucking tunic inside a fictional world I'm not remotely fond of.

Amy's fucking ecstatic, talking about plot lines she can fix, sounds more like meddling to me. She's trying to remind me of their names, but at this point I'm not in the mood to play nice.

We enter the town, and the street is deserted, no adults in sight just snot nosed little brats running around.

"Hey! We should go find some chests and look for some gil." I stare blankly at her, wondering what the hell gil was.

"Money, gil is what they call it here." Amy explained, frowning at me.

So Amy starts walking around, until she finds a randomly placed chest. She opens it and finds the coined money, quickly putting it into her pocket.

"Wasn't that somebody else's? Aren't you stealing? Who the fuck even leaves money inside containers out in the open like this?"

"You're nit picking again!" She glares at me, her hands balling into fists.

"I can't help it that there's holes in this games logic, or lack there of." I state my opinion, watching as she groans and marches off. Now where is she going to take me?

We wind up in the villages store, run by a girl in a rag-like dress. Seriously, why do people get their kicks dressing like these characters?

Amy's forward, asking about what weapons they have for sale.

"Tell me you're not getting a sword." I speak, reminding her with my voice that I'm still there.

"Well why not!?" She turns, glaring at me.

"You need to be reminded of how well you and sharp objects work together? A sword is just asking for trouble." She's rolling her eyes, turning away to ask for a sword, wanting to see how well it suits her.

I back up, watching with worry as she takes the hilt of a nearby sword, it's length longer than her arm. She's awkward with it, lifting it up one handed, you can tell its heavy for her, but she's being stubborn.

"This isn't so bad." Amy comments, taking the sword and attempted to swing it around gently. It's heavy, as I've said, and she didn't have that good of a grip on it, so the fucking thing goes flying out of her hand, and stabs into the shops door.

"You're done!" I inform her, headed for the door and easily removing the sword from the wood door. I place it back where it was, ready to leave before her antics get too out of hand.

"Fine, so maybe a sword wasn't the best weapon choice for me, but you need something too!" She reminds me, pointing a determined finger at the sword she'd tried out.

"Go ahead, take it for yourself. One of us needs to be armed in this game." She's trying to encourage me, as I stare at the damn weapon. I'm not that much of a sword guy, I hunt and like collecting and using various guns. So, because this game is set in a time where there aren't any guns, I'm stuck with choosing between a sword or a dagger.

We leave the shop, and I have a damn sword fastened to my belt, making me really feel like one of those cosplay dorks Amy use to hang out with. It's a necessary evil, wearing this outfit and weapon, and I'll just have to deal with it all until we find a way out of this game.

As we exit the shop, Amy does this little squeal as we look towards the inn. There's the main characters, in there's weird ass outfits and with their strange fucking names. I cringe just looking at them, dreading the fact that we'll undoubtedly have to run around with these bunch of poorly drawn ass holes.

The big guy, wearing shitty rusted armor is yelling at the blonde, long haired dude with the tail. The girl with long black/brown hair is shaking her head as they argue, while the kid in the wizard hat watches on.

Finally the group heads into the inn, Amy is dragging me by the arm, wanting to meet up with them and get introductions over with. I'm dreading it, hating groups of people, having a somewhat mental unease with large crowds. Too many people together bother me, I like my personal space and feel somewhat antsy when in a group of folks I don't know. Amy knows all this about me, but she's still pulling on my arm, insisting that it has to happen now so that she can warn them about this village.

We get inside, and the group has already entered the large sleeping room. Leaving us alone with "Sleepy Joe" the piss poor innkeeper.

"Listen, how are we going to even talk to these characters? They're already in the room, won't it be strange for us to go inside too?"

"Hey, we booked a bed already, so some of us will just have to bunk together tonight, or sleep on the floor. We'll introduce ourselves as a traveling couple, and then tell them about the stuff we coincidentally found out about this village. Just leave the major talking to me, okay? I've played this game loads of times, I've totally got this." Amy assured me, patting me on the shoulder before turning to open the door.

-0-0-

The group instantly turned to stare at our entry, curious yet cautious faces gazing questioningly at us.

"Hello, we booked one bed tonight as well, guess we're all room mates for the evening." Amy smiles, chuckling awkwardly as they all just stare, not saying a damn word.

"Hey, is there going to be an issue here, or what?" I finally ask, tired of their stupid stares.

"Now see here!" The retarded knight starts shaking his fist at me, "We're six people when there are only four beds. You commoners can just walk right out of here and find some hay to sleep in!"

"Steiner!" The girl yells at him, pussy whipping the guy into attention, "Now there's no need to be rude." She informs him, the mans mumbling negative comments to himself.

"Daggers right, there's no need for an attitude, Rusty." The blonde monkey boy agrees, smiling now at the two of us. "I'm sure we can figure something out. My names Zidane by the way, this is Dagger," he points to the orange jumpsuit wearing chick, "and Vivi's the little black mage resting over there." He nodded to the sleeping kid, still wearing his large wizardly hat.

"I'm Amy, and this is Shaun, my Fiancée." Amy just had to introduce us, the blonde guy looks surprised, gazing back and forth between us, driving me crazy.

"Something wrong?" Amy asks, the guy shrugged chuckling to himself.

"It's nothing, it's just your friend there looks so much older than you. It'd be like Dagger dating Rusty over there." The punk laughed, everyone else in the room was frowning at him, this didn't seem to bother the dude at all.

"Anyway, so today Shaun and I were exploring the town, and there's something you should know about it. There's something off going on here. We found a hatch leading to an underground factory, they're shipping off boxes with the seal of Alexandria on them. We were able to listen in on some of their conversations, apparently they're building objects for war."

"Blasphemy!" The knight raged, almost reaching out to clobber Amy for saying what she did, I moved between her and the douchey looking knight, glaring at him warningly.

"That...that can't be!" The long haired chick gasped, sinking down onto the nearby bed.

"Alright, everyone settle down!" The monkey boy tried to comfort the girl by placing a hand on her shaking shoulder.

"Don't worry, we'll figure all this out in the morning, I promise." He spoke to her, turning his attention on us. He was frowning, eyeing us somewhat suspiciously.

"Now, what you've just told us, is a lot to believe. In the morning, we'll all check this out and see if it's really true." He walked over to an empty bed, sitting down but still eyeing us.

"That's fine, we're not lying, you'll see in the morning. Everyone please stick together though, I'm worried what might happen in the morning if everyone's off on their own." Amy tried warning them, receiving strange looks from the group. I had to gently pull her with me to an open bed, sitting her down and trying to get her attention on me.

"Listen, it's a lot for them to take in, just have some patience." I try reasoning with her.

"I know, but I'm worried, I never thought it was fair for Vivi to get kidnapped and put into a box the way he did." She whispers to me, not wanting the others to hear.

"Lets just go to sleep, and see what happens in the morning." I laid down, taking up most of the small bed. Amy practically has to lay on top of me to lay down, her grunts and groans in trying to get comfy make me chuckle.

"I'm glad you're finding this hilarious, I pictured these beds a lot wider..." Amy grumbled. I can hear the chick whispering to the blonde dude, something about how strange it was for her to see an engaged couple sharing a bed so easily. This prudish and naive comment makes both of us laugh, while monkey boy is tasked with explaining how "every couple is different".

"Just so we're clear, I'm not remembering their retarded ass names." I inform Amy.

"What else are you going to call them?" She demands to know, we're both still whispering as we hash things out.

"Nick names, more than likely I'll be doing a lot of 'hey you' and 'sissy boy' amongst others." I'm being serious, but she seems to think I'm joking. Either way, I'm sticking to my guns, they can deal with my random nick names.

"Think we'll wake up and be back home?" Amy asked.

"As if we'd be so lucky..." I sigh, knowing that the way my luck ran, we'd be stuck until this damn story was over with, all four disks worth...FML.

-0-0-


	3. Chapter 3

**I Was Replaying Final Fantasy IX When...**

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy 9 belongs to Square Enix.

A/N: Amy (my) POV for this chapter.

-0-0-

I kept falling off the bed, though no one seemed to notice my embarrassing accident, I'd pick myself off the hard floor and pile on top of Shaun. He seemed to frown the entire time he slept, at least, for the few times I was awake to look at his sleeping face. I knew perfectly well that he wasn't happy, his sucky attitude a very big hint at how this experience was making him feel. What was I suppose to do? You can't force someone to be happy, he'd have to get over this issue on his own.

As the morning sun flitted through the rooms window, I could see the big boned Steiner rustling. He'd taken to the floor, not wanting to sleep in bed with Vivi, and was now slowly making his weary body rise from the floor. He did a few back stretches, wincing and cursing as he did so, before tip toeing his way out of the room.

I thought to myself, that it wasn't that big of a deal for him to wander off, my main concern was for little Vivi. He'd not go through the injustice of being kidnapped and boxed like a common vegetable so long as I was here to prevent it! I'd keep a firm eye on the black mage and beat up any country bumpkin that decided it was time to whisk the poor kid away. Did I have a weapon? No, but I was scrappy and loud, sure to put off any type of wrong doing directed at innocent little Vivi.

Vivi awoke second, looking over at us curiously, before flopping off the bed and waddling out of the room.

"Hey." I whisper to my bed mate, Shaun. "I'm headed out to follow Vivi, keep Zidane company when he wakes up. Maybe try and convince him that we're not liars, hmm?" I watch him mumble in his sleep, nodding a little to my words. I kiss the top of his head before slipping off him and the mattress.

The morning air feels nice, as I stride along the rustic little road, noticing Vivi looking at the town kids curiously. They're all in a group, gazing at him in fear, moving away when he'd take a step closer.

"Oh Vivi..." I sigh to myself, feeling for the little guy. I have seen first hand, in the real world, how kids can be cruel in their discrimination towards different children. My own niece has had up hill battles with trying to make friends, autism can make socializing really difficult. And I realize that Vivi is by no means handicapped, but he is still a young kid, trying to fit into a world that doesn't quite understand him. The least I can do, is be nearby in case he should need someone to be there for him.

As the kids wander away, Vivi moves over to the windmill, the place where he'll get kidnapped if I'm not careful and diligent in my watch.

He seems fine, looking over the windmill and the other objects nearby, until he turns his head to see me. It's amazing, actually looking at a pair of big golden eyes within that dark starless sky of a face he has. I smile at him, waving one hand in greeting. Now that he's noticed me, it seems rude not to formally walk over and introduce myself, he'd been sleeping when we walked into the room last night.

"Hello, my name is Amy. We haven't formally met yet, but your friends Dagger and Zidane said your name was Vivi." I watch as he's somewhat shy, wringing his gloved hands somewhat uncertainly.

"Yes, I'm Vivi." He acknowledges this fact, "Are you from this village?" He asks, and I'm a bit uncertain as to how I should answer him.

"No, I'm just traveling with my fiancée Shaun and we just happened to stop here to rest." I try to answer simply, the longer the lie, the harder it is to remember.

"Oh...what's a Fiancée?" He asks, making me chuckle kinda awkwardly.

"Well, it's what they call someone when they plan on marrying their boy or girlfriend." I answer him, the kid nods in understanding.

"So, have you been traveling with your friends for very long?" I try to keep the conversation going, glad to see him excited to tell me that the people he's traveling with are his first friends he's really made. It's all going well until I hear a loud argument going on towards the inn. Both Vivi and I turn to witness Shaun getting yelled at by a generic looking village woman, while Zidane watches on with a very confused look on his face.

"Wait right here, Vivi. I gotta go break that argument up." I tell him, unhappily leaving the little guys side to sort out what kinda trouble Shaun got himself into.

"Where have you been? I've been looking everywhere for you! You come home right now this instant, Mister!" The village lady is yelling, trying to grip at Shaun but he's holding her at arms length, keeping her at a distance.

"This is nuts! I fucking _hate_ this place!" He groans, his blue eyes angry as he's holding back the loud mouthed villager.

"What's going on?" I demand, the loud noise stops as the ragamuffin looking woman eyes me like a harlot.

"She thinks I'm her husband." Shaun grounds out the words, frustration all over his face.

"You _are_ my husband! Now who's this? Is this the reason you've been gone?!" The lady cries, eyeing me like I'm the Devil himself.

"If he's your husband, what's his name?" I ask, trying to defuse this, Zidane needs to trust us, this scene isn't helping that matter.

"Phil! He's my Phil and you can't have him, hussy!" She yells at me, trying to throw herself at Shaun who keeps her firmly at a distance.

"Alright, see there?" I speak to Zidane, "The lady is confused. I told you we were Amy and Shaun, she's obviously just distraught and easily mistaken." I try to clear things up, and Zidane looks like he wants to believe, but the lady is just insistent!

"Phil! Phil? I'm your Emma, remember? Please, don't leave me for this slut!" She insults me again, and I'm trying to not take it personally, but she's treading on thin ice.

"Listen, he's Shaun, my guy. Now you need to walk away, before I shove my boot up your whiney ass." I warn her, having enough of this distraction.

"Oh," she's not looking at us anymore, I turn to see what's caught her attention and notice Vivi 's gone. "We'll, I guess you're right, he's not my Phil after all!" She pulls away, attempting to retreat.

"You _bitch_!" I scream, following her and tackling the scheming woman to the ground.

"What the Hell?" Zidane and Shaun both say at the same time, looking down at me as I wrestle with the lady.

"She was a decoy! She was making a scene to get our attention, so they could steal Vivi!" I yell at both of them, having a heck of a time holding down the struggling wench.

"Vivi? They kidnapped him?!" Zidanes in a tizzy, helping me now to hold down the lady as he demands to know where they took Vivi.

"He's going to be boxed and shipped out with the rest of them!" She growls, like an angry feral cat.

"Zidane, we gotta save him before this experience traumatizes the poor guy!" I urge him, leaping off her and hauling ass towards where the secret hatch is. Shaun is told to stay with Dagger at the inn, as Zidane follows quickly behind me.

"Those ass holes! I never knew they'd be so conniving! Bastards!" I swear, lifting up the heavy ass latch before climbing down the poorly built ladder. As I touch the floor, I'm already looking behind barrels, trying to see if Vivi is close at hand, or if they had moved him further through the underground factory.

"These barrels, they really do have the seal on them." Zidane comments, before taking the lead position. We're quiet and careful, making our way along the path. Finally we come upon the area where the chocobo was kept. I peek carefully and see Vivi with two men, talking about what they should do with him.

"Zidane, you ready?" I whisper, getting a nod from him as we both pop out and surprise the villagers. Zidane whacks one guy upside the head with the hilt of his dagger, while I kidney punch the other guy, stomping on his foot hard. I hate that I'm weapon less, but just because I am, doesn't mean I'm gonna sit by and do nothing.

Zidane knocks out the guy I had punched, giving us privacy to ask Vivi if he was okay, if those men had hurt him.

"No, they didn't hurt me." His voice is shaky, he's still frightened, but at least we got to him before he was boxed up.

"What is this place, Zidane?" He asks, and I look at Zidane, waiting to hear that he finally believes me.

"I guess it's an underground factory after all. But what kind of weapons are they making? We gotta find out." He begins to lead us deeper within the facility. I'm worried, deep down knowing that Vivi has the right to know about this, but also feeling sorry for him. He's so young, to have to witness this fucked up shit going on. How would we feel if humans were mass produced? Vivi has a lot of weight to carry on his little shoulders, I guess the best I can do for him now is just be by his side.

We see the machine producing the large eggs, and I feel my guts rolling. It's a lot more surreal within the game than it was playing it. Smelling the fumes from the machine, hearing the hatching from the hidden part of the conveyer. It was eerie, being alive and apart of this messed up facility.

We follow the facility till we're in the packaging room, where the black mages are visible for little Vivi to see. All of us are quiet as Vivi comes to grip over how they look a lot like himself, we're out of time though, because we can hear the workers nearby coming towards our area.

"Gotta hide." Zidane looks around till he spots one of those coffin shaped boxes.

"Shit." I curse, knowing what was to come, I don't really _like_ confining quarters.

"Alright, Vivi you first." He picks up the kid, tossing him gently into the box.

"Your turn." He eyes me up and down sort of thoughtfully, "By the way, how old are you?" He asks, when it really isn't the time or place for such a question!

We can hear the workers almost upon us, so with a quick lift and shove, he had me inside the dark, tight fitting box, and it only gets tighter when he hauls his monkey ass into it. I'm elbowing him, trying to have a bit more space within the dark chamber, and he's whispering for me to knock it off. Before we know it, the box is starting to move!

"So much for changing this part." I groan to myself, pissed that I couldn't change things as much as I had hoped, and also wondering if Shaun would be smart enough to meet us at the damned cargo ship.

-0-0-


	4. Chapter 4

**I Was Replaying Final Fantasy IX When...**

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy 9 belongs to Square Enix.

Amy ran off with the monkey boy, while I made my way inside the inn. Orange girl, or whatever her name is, was sitting calmly on her bed when I entered the guest room. She rose up the moment I entered, asking right away where her little boyfriend was.

"He and Amy headed off to go find your black mage." I answer, sitting down on one of the beds, trying to tell myself Amy would be fine alone with that dude.

The girl sits down, twiddling her thumbs as we sit in an awkward silence together. She's probably uncomfortable, not sure if I'm trustworthy, the way I'm currently feeling about the blonde monkey tailed guy alone with Amy. After intense minutes of silent worry, with my guts starting to hurt, I stand up and ask her if we should try and help search for the missing kid.

The long haired chick stands up quickly, practically beating me out the door and into the main area of the inn. We glance over and notice the innkeeper is still sleeping, before leaving the room to go check things out in the village.

The kids in this village are still running around, somewhat under foot as we search for the missing black mage. She's calling out his name as I head towards the direction Amy and the other guy had gone. The giant metal latch is wide open, so I gesture for the princess chick to follow my lead. I'm pretty wide shouldered, so it's a tight squeeze down the ladder and into the underground area. It smells like a spud cellar, musty and the temperature somewhat cool.

We follow the small path, running into no one so far, when we notice some large barrels. The chick starts pointing at the symbol on the barrels, saying something about it being from her "castle" or whatever. I'm more concerned with finding Amy, her issue with the seal on the barrel is unimportant.

I start heading down further, my ears pick up sounds of something moving, something living. We turn a corner and see a giant, yellow bird inside a small pen. I'm reminded of Sesame Street, their character Big Bird when I look at this strange creature.

"A chocobo, underground? But why?" The royal gal wonders out loud, reaching out and petting the friendly creature.

"Come on, we'll find out more up ahead." I urge, moving onward once more and my ears start picking up another noise, this one mechanical sounding. The smell of oil and an odor I can't place, was entering my nose as we stepped into a room with strange machinery. I know an engine when I see one, this engine seemed to be producing a fog or mist, and large eggs bigger than ostrich eggs are popping out of the thing, onto a conveyer belt.

The princess and I, both intrigued, follow the assembly line. We get to this room, and things get weird. Bodies, dressed in mage outfits, are hanging like meat at a butcher shop, moving slowly into the packaging area. And this game is rated Teen? The symbolism behind this factory is kinda more for a mature mind, kids aren't going to get how fucking messed up it all really is. But I'm digressing, sure it's funky, watching bodies glide along to get packaged, but we have bigger problems. I can see people, loading a wagon attached to a Big Bird.

An exit is visible, one big enough for the wagon to go through. So I tell the chick beside me to wait quietly, until the workers are about to leave.

"We'll sneak past once the wagon leaves, no ones going to be looking." I tell her, she nods her head simply, her dark eyes look troubled as we wait for our moment.

The man gets into the seat of the wagon, and whips the giant bird into motion. The women who'd been helping, turn their backs and start towards a different direction, giving us our moment.

"Hurry!" I hiss, leading the way, moving as quickly as I can and following the wagon.

We're out in the open now, next to the little farm. There's a huge ship with propellers on it, waiting to pick up the packages. The man hasn't noticed us yet, as he halts his bird and gets off the seat.

There's no way we can hide in time, so we just stand there and stare at him. He's shocked, and confused. Looking at us uneasily, when I decide to say something.

"So, you chose this over farming, huh?" He jumps, panicked and turns to run away from us. I'm not about to chase the coward, he's not worth the effort.

"Shaun?" I hear my name called, it sounded like Amy.

"Where you at?" I answer, listening for the voice again, I notice a barrel is moving funnily.

"That you?" I tap on it with a fist.

"Get us out already!" Amy groans from within, testy.

"Fine, fine." I sigh, scooting the barrel off until it falls from the wagon, the force breaking it and opening up it's living contents.

Monkey boy is sweating, the little mage looks like he's near tears, and Amy just looks pissed.

"What took you so long?" She hissed, eyeing me moodily.

"Hey, at least they found us!" The blonde guy tried easing the tention between us.

"Zidane, can we use this ship to fly to Lindblum?" The princess asked, standing next to the mage.

"That'd be an easier way than border crossing." He commented, eyeing the airship curiously.

"Well, lets get going then." Amy grumbles, leading the way and climbing up the rope ladder. The little mage follows her, then the princess, until it's just monkey boy and I.

"I guess we're leaving without the knight then?" I comment, the dude sort of chuckles at that.

"Hey, if he doesn't show up, I'm not going to mention a word unless the princess does." He laughed, turning to go towards the ladder.

"Wait, is that him?" I point, noticing a figure off in the distance, marching our way. Right as we're watching the knight, the ship starts to lift off the ground. Both of us rush to the ladder, climbing it quickly and catching a ride on the moving airship.

That knight is screaming, waving his fist in the air as he tries to reach the rope. He's weighted down by all that armor, and just isn't quite fast enough to reach it in time. He's cursing, hopping up and down in his rage at missing the ride to Lindblum. The monkey boy is laughing hysterically, pointing at the irate and now stranded knight.

"Won't the girl be pretty pissed about this?" I comment, causing his laughter to halt.

"Maybe we won't bring it up just yet." He said, opening the door to the engine room. I follow him, impressed with the mechanical works of the ship, until I notice the little mage trying to talk with the big mages. They looked exactly like the ones being mass produced, but didn't seem able to speak the way the kid did.

The little mage finally gave up, tilting his head downward in sadness. Amy and the princess were comforting him, touching his shaking shoulders and telling him it was alright.

"Well, we'd better get topside, I doubt this ship was originally headed to Lindblum, I'll have to steer it in the right direction." Zidane commented, walking past the group. He patted the mage on the back before heading up another ladder, disappearing from sight.

"Listen, we should follow Zidane, there might be an issue up there." Amy sort of warned, leading the group and myself the way monkey boy had gone.

I've flown before, in airplanes, but this is significantly different. The airship was impressive, though I hate to admit this fact to Amy, I'm thoroughly enjoying this portion of our game, looking off the side and down at the landscape. Walking on the deck of a ship yet having the clouds near you is almost insane. A good insane.

Amy is busy trying to prepare her fictional character for the upcoming event, meaning a boss battle, when I notice something winged heading our way.

"Times up." I call to her, getting everyone's attention as we all watch this poor excuse for a scarecrow land on our ship.

"Black mage number one may have perished, but you'll not make it past me, number two." It laughed crazily, raising its staff as it giggled.

"Oh screw this noise!" I say, taking out my sword and decide to show these characters how to really battle, none of this wait your turn bullshit.

I swing out, slicing at the monsters arm and taking it clear off, the staff falling to the ground with its decapitated appendage.

It's screaming at me, those big wings flapping wildly but I'm not done. I aim for one wing, nicking it and watching as the feathers fly. No ones entered the battle yet, they're all staring at me with shocked looks on their faces, but I'm not stopped by that.

I swing again, whacking off the creatures steeple hatted head. The thing runs around like chickens do without their head, it trips over something and falls off the ship entirely.

"Da da da, da da da da da!" I'm mimicking the stupid music I've heard playing before when this game ends a battle, turning around to smile triumphantly at everyone.

"That's how it's done!" I whoop, Amy is fuming, the kid and princess and speechless, and there's no sign of monkey boy, I'm assuming he's busy turning us around.

"Shaun, we need to talk." Amy grounded out her words, trotting up to lead me away from everyone else, probably going to nag me once we are alone. Her anger was worth it, I'd been dying to prove a point and felt very happy with how things had gone down. Let her bitch, it was totally worth it.

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A/N: Yay, another chapter! Hope it's received well. Any guesses how Steiner meets back up with the group?


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